Friday, January 29, 2016

Jerry House lives in Florida. He can be reached athouse_jerry@hotmail.com. TARZAN OF THE MOVIES by Gabe Essoe (From the archives)

With
the death of Johnny Sheffield last month, I got to thinking about
Tarzan movies. Five-year old Sheffield had been handpicked by Johnny
Weismuller to play Boy in TARZAN FINDS A SON. Weismuller had looked on
Sheffield as the son he couldn't have during his tempetuous marriage to
Lupe Velez. (Weismuller's first marriage to Bobbe Arnst ended at the
request of MGM Studios, which paid Bobbe $10,000 for the divorce,
because the studio felt marriage would be a hindrance to Weismuller's
career; his later romancing of Velez was approved by the studio as good
publicity.)

This is just one tidbit from Gabe Essoe's TARZAN OF
THE MOVIES: A PICTORIAL HISTORY OF MORE THAN FIFTY YEARS OF EDGAR
RICE BURROUGH'S LEGENDARY HERO (Cadillac Publishing, 1968), a chatty
walk down memory lane from Elmo Lincoln to Mike Henry, with a side
jaunt to the Ron Ely television series and a few unauthorized foreign
films (such as Singapore's THE ADVENTURES OF CHINESE TARZAN, 1940).
Some of the other interesting items:

- When a drugged lion turned on him during the filming of TARZAN OF THE APES, Elmo Lincoln stabbed and killed the lion.

-
Boris Karloff's first screen appearance was as a Waziri chief in
TARZAN AND THE GOLDEN LION, the last true silent Tarzan movie, which
also featured Burroughs' future son-in-law Jim Pierce as Tarzan. That
movie, by the way, was financed by Joseph P. Kennedy, the father of John
F. Kennedy. The book has a great photograph of Karloff as an angry
African warrior.

- The several attempts to kill off (or ignore) Jane as a character.

- The deaths of an actor, a trainer, and a stuntman during the filming the series.

- Among the actors rejected for the role of Tarzan was Clark Gable. (Because, "He has no body.")

-
How Weismuller made a friend of the movie Cheetah by hitting him hard
on the head with his hunting knife to show him who was boss,.

-
The original Tarzan yell was created by using four different
synchronized sound tracks: a camel's bleat, a hyena's howl, the growl of
a dog, and the plunking of a violin's G-string. Weismuller and Lex
Barker were able to recreate the yell; Ron Ely wasn't.

The book
portrays Burroughs as a sometimes canny/sometimes naive businessman
whose protective nature for his creation was paramount. His disdain
for many of the portrayals of his character is evident, as we follow
the complicated business dealings that allowed "duelling" Tarzans from
different studios. All too often the producing studios' visions led to
the degradation of the series to strictly juvenile fare.

TARZAN
OF THE MOVIES also contains hundreds of photographs (all, alas, in
black and white), including those of television guest stars Diana Ross
and Mary Wilson, Ethel Merman, Fernando Lamas, and Julie Harris.

Bottom line: a casual and entertaining overview and a wonderful way to spend an afternoon.

Thursday, January 28, 2016

Every once in a while it becomes evident to me that some people are very methodical in what they read. They have it all mapped out. Unless it is a book group book, I never know. Well sometimes I have a library book with limited time so I know I will try that first. But often I wander around the house for an hour trying to decide.

How about you? How do you decide? What are you going to read next?If you know.

Tuesday, January 26, 2016

Hard to beat this opening, first the lovely panning shot, establishing the setting, and then boom. I don't know why I never saw this one before. Well, I am not a Better Davis fan, I guess that's why. But she nails this one as do the other players, the director, all of them.

Based on a W. Somerset Maugham novel, this is the story of a murder and the question is: will Bette Davis bat her eyes enough to get away with it with so many men to protect her. Well worth your time. And a humdinger ending.

Friday, January 22, 2016

Los Angeles is arguably the birthplace of the American
detective novel. The multiple opportunities for corruption, political, economic
and personal, make this city an ideal locale for examining the success/failure
narrative at the heart of the American Dream.

More recently, new writers have
offeredrevisionist accounts, still with
some marks of homage, that veer from the iconic chroniclers of LA by centering
those who were largely invisible in the early narratives.Racial and ethnic minorities were generally
given roles of house servants, gardeners, day laborers and cooks. Naomi
Hirahara’s works are certainly among the very best of this new sub-genre.

In her first novel, Summer of the Big Bachi
(2008), Hirahara’s protagonist is not a PI but a gardener, one of those
invisible people in the traditional LA novel. Mas Arai is a Japanese-American
whose childhood included a brief return to the native Hiroshima of his family.
Arai, like the traditional PI, is very much a flawed figure, an indifferent
husband and father, with gambling issues. And like the PI, he makes a living on
the margins, in this case with a dwindling set of clients many of whom have now
hired larger Mexican landscape firms. He is justifiably obsessed with “bachi,.”
a belief that some slight or larger moral wrong is inevitably swiftly paid back
by punishment.

Arai’s bachi is the arrival in LA of Joji Haneda, a childhood
friend from Hiroshima. Both survived
the atomic bomb attack in 1945. What follows is a carefully plotted thriller
involving previous wrongs, disguised identities, and, yes, political and
economic corruption. The Summer of the Bachi is a captivating and poignant novel
that not only excels as a revisionist work but independently as a novel of
considerable power.

Thursday, January 21, 2016

Forty-nine years ago today, I got married in Philadelphia. The reception was held at Sunken Gardens, which disappeared soon after that after half a century of existence. The nice thing about SG was that they had an in-house band so you didn't have to hire one. Not a day has passed when I didn't thank my lucky stars that I married Phil.

Sorry not to have a pic of Phil and me but I can't put my hands on it right now. Thanks for 49 good years, Phil.

Tuesday, January 19, 2016

I loved the novel by Herman Koch of a few years ago. And yet this movie, though very different, was tremendously satisfying too. Ivano de Matteo’s nuanced drama widens the scope in a way that makes you feel you understand the story better. More than one way to skin a cat, I guess.Two teenagers, cousins and both seemingly normal, are caught on video kicking an old woman who got in their way. As the story unfolds you see why such a thing took place given their families and how society treats wealthy kids today. Pretty scary stuff.

Monday, January 18, 2016

I was thinking about this the other day. Comparing the writers, actors, singers who I followed with keen interest as a teenager with later in life. They would include John Lennon, Steve McQueen, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Tuesday Weld, John F. Kennedy, Margaret Mead, Sara and Gerald Murphy, Jack Kerouac, J.D. Salinger, Paul Newman, Peggy Fleming, The Alcotts, The Bloomsbury Circle, Anne Frank.

Friday, January 15, 2016

Richard Prather Day

Richard Scott Prather
was an American mystery novelist, best known for creating the "Shell
Scott" series. He also wrote under the pseudonyms David Knight and
Douglas Ring.

Prather was born in Santa Ana, California. He
served in the United States Merchant Marine during World War II. In 1945
year he married Tina Hager and began working as a civilian chief clerk
of surplus property at March Air Force Base in Riverside, California. He
left that job to become a full-time writer in 1949. The first Shell
Scott mystery, 'Case of the Vanishing Beauty' was published in 1950. It
would be the start of a long series that numbered more than three dozen
titles featuring the Shell Scott character.

Prather had a
disagreement with his publisher in the 1970s and sued them in 1975. He
gave up writing for several years and grew avocados. However in 1986 he
returned with 'The Amber Effect'. Prather's final book, 'Shellshock',
was published in hardcover in 1987 by Tor Books.

At the time of
his death in 2007, he had completed his final Shell Scott Mystery novel,
'The Death Gods'. It was published October 2011 by Pendleton Artists.

Prather
served twice on the Board of Directors of the Mystery Writers of
America. Additionally Prather received the Shamus Award, "The Eye"
(Lifetime achievment award) in 1986.

Guest at a lavish party
intended to promote and sell a new development in Laguna Beach called Laguna
Paradise, “1500 acres…complete with paved roads, underground utilities, an
eighteen-hole golf course, subdivisions containing hundreds of king-size lots,
and two dozen model homes ready and waiting for anybody with lots of money,” private
detective Shell Scott is enjoying the drinks and the view—especially the view of a couple of the models hired to help with
the promotion.

The party’s hosts are Scott’s
long-time friend Jim Paradise and his partner, Adam Preston. Scott has no
reason to expect any trouble until he sees a mobster-type, whom he recognizes
but can’t immediately name, talking to Preston, and with whom he subsequently has
a brief unfriendly encounter. Later in the evening, Scott, Jim and the two
models, Eve and Laurie, have a private party at Jim’s home that culminates in a
game of strip poker. But just as things are getting interesting, word comes
that Adam Preston has been murdered. Still later, an attempt is made on Jim’s
life, and Scott voluntarily enmeshes himself in a case that centers around Brea
Island, just off the California coast, which Adam Preston apparently owned and
on which he and Jim hoped to build yet another development called Paradise
Island. Brea is also the home to Handi-Foods, Inc., a manufacturer of baby food
owned by Horace Lorimer and, as Scott eventually learns, managed by a hood
named Louis H. (Lou the Greek) Grecian.

The deeper he digs, the more
Scott finds that appearances, human and non-human, are misleading in this short
(159-paged), fast-paced novel. Although I found it generally diverting, as most
of the author’s works are, I could have done without the diatribes against California’s
drug laws, unions, and progressive taxation, the first of which comes directly
from Scott, the latter two from businessmen he says he agrees with, and all of
which, most likely, reflect the author’s personal views. But at least they’re
extremely brief, especially in contrast to the tedious chapters-long screeds in
The Death
Gods.

Joker in the
Deck does not contain as much of the screwball
comedy found in other titles in the Shell Scott series, but does it contain just
a smidge toward the climax in a sequence involving a seaplane. (And that may
well be the only time in my life I’ve ever used the word smidge, orally or in writing.) I wouldn’t rate it one of the great
Shell Scott novels, but it is a quick
and entertaining mystery story.

This is my first Richard S. Prather novel. Throughout I tried to compare him with other writers of that time or any time and was unable to successfully do that. There's a little bit of a lot of other PIs in Shell Scott, but he is mostly himself. Yes, you can see threads of Jack Reacher, Travis McGee and Hoke Mosley here and there but the tongue in cheek writing and the quick pace is mostly original (I think).

In ALWAYS LEAVE 'EM DYING from 1954, Shell is hired to find a
girl named Felicity Gifford, who has hooked up with a bizarre cult run
by a man named Trammel. Shell Scott knows enough about Trammel to be immediately mistrustful of that involvement. Her mother (and everyone who knows her) paints a picture of a perfect young woman so how did she hook up with this guy?

Shell
starts his investigation where Felicity was employed.
She worked at Greenhaven Hospital. Greenhaven is a psychiatric hospital where Shell is almost immediately drawn into a long chase. (Clearly Prather's real talent is in keeping things moving and there is little pause in this novel.)

Shell’s involvement with a patient at Greenhaven leads the
doctors to the conclusion he is a new admission, so they drug him and crack his
skull. Mid-century mental health practices not withstanding. Shell tries
to escape, only to stumble upon a dead body being carried out.. But also he witnesses the death of the cult leader and his return to life three days
later. Shell has to not only prove he is not crazy, but solve the
missing person case, which has a lot to do with this cult.

Prather is a
fun and fast read throughout although this is very far from my usual type of crime fiction stories. Turning out books at a furious pace must have been the way Prather could make a living.He knew how to do it, I think.

Thursday, January 14, 2016

Wednesday, January 13, 2016

Over the last few weeks, I have read two novels after seeing the movie. In the first case, BROOKLYN, the movie followed the book slavishly. Not a bad thing though when your original source was this strong. There was really no reason to stray from the text.

In the second case, THE PRICE OF SALT (Highsmith) becomes CAROL and it deviates a lot more from the novel. A large portion of THE PRICE OF SALT is a cross-country trek by the two female lovers. They are followed by a detective, which adds a lot of excitement and tension. Although the detective is in the movie, he plays a much less chilling role. Also in the book, we get inside Therese's head and this adds so much to the story. Carol is still enigmatic but now we know what Therese is thinking. This brought a lot more warmth to the story. We see the difficulties of a young woman embarking on what will be an alternative life style-especially in the 1950s. There are also some interesting discussions of the differences between homosexual and heterosexual relationships.

I am not really asking which films have done the best job of translating a novel to screen but instead which books when you read them later had to make changes because of the structure of the novel. BROOKLYN, almost none and CAROL, quite a lot. Last week, the changes in THE MAN WITH THE GOLDEN ARM were vast. Part of that was because (I think) they wanted a happy ending. And did not want Frank Sinatra to play a more villainous character. Interesting the things that lead to changes in the script.

Tuesday, January 12, 2016

for additional information on the film, go here.You will be amazed at what they changed between the book and the movie.

Otto Preminger directed an adaption of the Nelson Algren book. Frank Sinatra plays Frankie Machine, just out of jail, where he kicked heroin. He has the opportunity to try out for a band as a drummer but virtually everything gets in the way. Eleanor Parker plays his wheelchair-bound wife, Darren McGavin, his drug source, and Kim Novak, his love interest. The score Elmer Bernstein) is terrific. Preminger forgo the big screen, color version he had planned for this plain as dirt but interesting set in black and white. This is Sinatra's best performance (he thought so too) and all of the supporting roles are well done. Can't believe I never saw this one until now. The movie gives every scene what it needs.. Sounds like the book ended very differently indeed.

Monday, January 11, 2016

I have not seen Leonardo DiCaprio in REVENANT so I can't include what many say was the best male performance. I don't think this was an especially good year for men in films. Too many men are spending their careers making action movies. They may make money but the careers of people like Robert Downey Jr,, Johnny Depp and others have taken a nosedive in terms of esteem. Tom Hanks seems to play the same character all too often.

Wednesday, January 06, 2016

It actually wasn't hard choosing just ten this year. Eleven would have been THE MARTIAN but that was a more ordinary film than the top ten. And after that the fall off would have been larger. But here they are.

Tuesday, January 05, 2016

It makes me angry that this is the sort of film doesn't get made anymore--not even by the independent filmmakers. At least not in the US. Joanne Woodward excelled at playing the sort of woman this is about. Vaguely disappointed, vaguely under-appreciated, vaguely bored,and yet she never lost the audience's sympathy because at heart she was a good soul. Although Martin Balsam playing her husband does appreciate her--she not so much him. This is as much like an Alice Munro short story as I have seen on screen. A few months in the lives of a married couple suffering from their son's absence, which they have in some way caused.

Monday, January 04, 2016

I can't think of many actors whose career has been as good as Michael Caine. It's Saturday night and you are going to watch a triple feature. (I know that seems ridiculous to some people). But what three Michael Caine movies would you boot up.

ALFIE
GET CARTER
HANNAH AND HER SISTERS

This was really hard. So many other great films. So which three do you pick. IMDB will help you out.

Sunday, January 03, 2016

Once two cute little blonde boys lived down the street from us and played with our son, Josh. They are both professional writers and actors now and have made a seven episode online series called ONE AND DONE. It's about a group of men wrestling with the forties. A little like THE LEAGUE but much more likable for my money. The writing is terrific, the acting great and it rings so true. If you like it pass the word on.

About Me

Patricia Abbott is the author of more than 125 stories that have appeared online, in print journals and in various anthologies. She is the author of two print novels CONCRETE ANGEL (2015) and SHOT IN DETROIT (2016)(Polis Books). CONCRETE ANGEL was nominated for an Anthony and Macavity Award in 2016. SHOT IN DETROIT was nominated for an Edgar Award and an Anthony Award in 2017. A collection of her stories I BRING SORROW AND OTHER STORIES OF TRANSGRESSION will appear in 2018.